A majority of Americans support some form of prayer in public schools, according to a new Pew Research Center study released on Monday.
Pew found that 53% of U.S. adults support allowing public-school teachers to lead classes in prayer, “but only if students are not required to participate.”
According to the survey, 57% of Americans favor allowing public-school coaches to lead their teams in prayer, while 50% support displaying the Ten Commandments in public-school classrooms.
Views differed sharply by religion and political affiliation. However, Pew noted that while people of multiple faiths participated in the survey, “the sample does not contain enough Jews, Muslims or members of other relatively small U.S. religious groups to allow their opinions to be reported separately.”
White evangelical Protestants were among the strongest supporters of student-led prayer at 96%, followed closely by black Protestants at 88%. Some 64% of those described as religiously unaffiliated also favored student-led group prayer.
Most Republicans favored displaying the Ten Commandments in public schools, as well as coaches leading teams in prayer, while most Democrats opposed these practices.
The findings are based on a Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults conducted April 6-12, 2026.
